“I think it’s a whole different feel around here. We have higher expectations than the last few years being rebuilding years. There’s just a whole different chemistry and feel, not only in the locker room, but in the whole organization when you walk around and you talk to people in the business office, you talk to the coaches, you talk to the players. That was a feel we had all summer, even at the practice facility. It’s one of those years where talent has evolved, we picked up some players, we have a defensive-minded coaching staff and expectations are higher, not only from us, but from the fans, as they should be.”

CLEVELAND: It had been 527 days since Andrew Bynum last appeared in an NBA game. When he got off the bench late in the first quarter and pulled off his warm-ups, expectations for the Cavs this season changed instantly.

Anderson Varejao’s jumper from the free-throw line with 28 seconds left lifted the Cavaliers to a 98-94 season-opening victory against the Brooklyn Nets on a night Bynum’s productive eight minutes captured the night.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert addressed the media before Wednesday's season opener against the Brooklyn Nets at Quicken Loans Arena.

Gilbert was asked how he feels about the Cavs' chances of keeping All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving long term. The Cavs have picked up his option for next season. The earliest Irving can be a free agent is the 2016-17 season.

CLEVELAND: Andrew Bynum is active and expected to play in tonight's season opener against the Brooklyn Nets. He won't start, and he is only expected to play for one stretch. Once he comes out of the game, he will not return.

The Cavs signed him as a free agent over the summer not knowing exactly what they would get out of him. They’ll begin to find out tonight.

INDEPENDENCE: Earl Clark is expected to start at small forward Wednesday when the Cavs open the season against the Brooklyn Nets, but coach Mike Brown expects to play Clark, Alonzo Gee and C.J. Miles in the game.

Clark always held the edge because of his length. He struggled through an inconsistent preseason while essentially learning to play a new position, but Brown likes having a 6-foot-10 defender on the wing.

Matthew Dellavedova and Henry Sims survived cutdown day and are expected to open the season the Cavs' 15-man roster. DeSagana Diop, Jermaine Taylor, Elliot Williams and Kenny Kadji weren't as fortunate.

Sims, a center, and Dellavedova, a point guard, emerged as the leading contenders to win the final two spots a couple of weeks ago. Taylor and Kadji both played well in flashes, but Taylor is a wing and the Cavs are stocked there. Kadji is a 25-year-old rookie and more of a power forward than center. The Cavs need another center given the injury histories of both Andrew Bynum and Anderson Varejao.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.: In his final audition, Earl Clark had his best shooting performance of the preseason on Thursday. Now he’ll have to wait and see if it’s good enough to earn him the starting small forward job on opening night.

Clark scored 12 points and shot 5 of 7 in a 105-92 loss at the Charlotte Bobcats to conclude the preseason. The Cavaliers will take about a week off now before opening the regular season at home against the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday.

CINCINNATI: It took a little longer than expected, but the initial pairing of Kyrie Irving and Jarrett Jack was a relative success. In his first game back from a knee injury, Jack had five points and five assists in 10 minutes and Irving scored 19 points in the Cavs’ 101-82 preseason loss to the Washington Wizards at U.S. Bank Arena.

Since it was his first game in more than a week, Jack played only the first quarter and sat the rest of the game. Irving was forced into the shooting guard role for most of his night because Dion Waiters sat with an ankle injury, C.J. Miles missed the game with a leg injury and Sergey Karasev remains sidelined with a sprained ankle, leaving the Cavs woefully thin at shooting guard.

CINCINNATI: The Cavaliers picked up the fourth-year options on Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson and the third-year options on Dion Waiters and Tyler Zeller today, the team announced. The moves are not a surprise and it's more a paperwork formality.

The option years are for the 2014-15 season. Irving and Thompson will be eligible for contract extensions beginning next summer.

CINCINNATI: News and nuggets prior to tonight's game against the improving Wizards...

* There will be three pretty talented young guards on the floor tonight in Kyrie Irving, John Wall and Bradley Beal. Dion Waiters' ankle injury will prevent that from being the quartet. Waiters is out tonight with an ankle injury, but it isn't considered serious.

COLUMBUS: While LeBron James was the overwhelming favorite, Kyrie Irving received votes from NBA general managers as the best player with whom they'd like to begin a franchise.

In the recent anonymous NBA.com poll, Irving received 3.4 percent of the votes, falling well behind James (89.7 percent) and Kevin Durant (6.9 percent). It isn't clear if all the GMs participated and if not, how many were polled.

COLUMBUS: Final thoughts from a 104-93 win over a really, really bad 76ers team...

* I spent the bulk of the game story on Alonzo Gee because he played his finest game of the preseason and the small forward battle is one of the main storylines of this preseason, but Tristan Thompson’s work on the glass tonight was exemplary. Thompson grabbed 16 rebounds in 27 minutes and outworked the majority of the Sixers’ frontline.

INDEPENDENCE: An MRI on C.J. Miles' ailing left leg was negative, but Miles did not participate in practice today and is unlikely to play in Saturday's home preseason finale against the Indiana Pacers.

Dion Waiters (hip) did participate in everything, but Friday's practice was only a light workout. Waiters is considered questionable for the Pacers. Neither injury is considered serious.

CLEVELAND: More final thoughts (I mean it this time) following a Cavs win...

* Mike Brown sort of slipped prior to the game when he revealed Anthony Bennett has sleep apnea. The Cavs diagnosed him with it over the summer and gave him a CPAP mask to wear at night. “It’s just something I have to get adjusted to because I never knew I had it before,” Bennett said. “I just found out.”

CLEVELAND: Final thoughts following a preseason win over the Detroit Pistons at the Q…

* First an opinion: No one has definitively said this, but I’m getting the sense Andrew Bynum could return to the court for the season opener Oct. 30 against the Brooklyn Nets in a limited role. If not in time for the opener, soon after.

CLEVELAND: Andrew Bynum is down to his “game weight,” a league source said, and continues to inch closer to a return to the court with the Cavs. Bynum has hit every milestone the team has set before him without any setbacks, including participating in 3 on 3 half-court scrimmages with teammates during Wednesday’s practice.

One of the next steps will be a full contact 5 on 5 practice, but that isn’t likely to happen for at least a few more days. The Cavs are in a stretch of playing games every other night, meaning they likely won’t have another physically demanding practice until after concluding the preseason schedule Wednesday at Charlotte.

Bennett, the top overall pick in June’s draft, has labored getting up and down the floor during games this preseason. The assumption was he was playing his way back into shape after missing a summer of conditioning, but Brown filled in some of the blanks.

INDEPENDENCE: Sergey Karasev will start at shooting guard tonight when the Cavs host the Detroit Pistons at Quicken Loans Arena. Karasev is starting in place of Dion Waiters, who will miss the game with a right hip contusion.

Karasev, selected 19th overall in June's draft, returned to the team in time for Wednesday’s practice after traveling to the Bahamas to receive his visa. Cavs coach Mike Brown wants to see how Karasev handles the expanded role and how he fits with the rest of the starters.

CANTON: The Cavaliers’ defense crumbled in the third quarter, allowing the Charlotte Bobcats to shoot 60 percent in the quarter en route to a 92-74 preseason victory over the Cavaliers at Canton Civic Center. It was the Cavs' first loss of the preseason after opening with a pair of victories.

The Cavs were playing without Jarrett Jack (knee), Tyler Zeller (hip) and Anderson Varejao (resting). That left Henry Sims starting at center and Kenny Kadji serving as his backup.

CANTON: Jarrett Jack could play through the pain if the Cavaliers were in the playoffs, coach Mike Brown said Tuesday, but Carrick Felix can take all the time he needs to heal – and he should familiarize himself with Canton while he's down here because he's probably coming back.

Jack is expected to miss about 10 days to let the inflammation in his left knee subside, but Brown doesn’t seem concerned about it. Jack doesn’t have much of an injury history with the knee, aside from missing six games during the 2011-12 season when he bruised it.

INDEPENDENCE: Alonzo Gee is expected to start at small forward on Tuesday when the Cavaliers host the Charlotte Bobcats at Canton Memorial Civic Center.

Gee missed Friday's preseason win at Orlando with a hamstring injury, but returned to practice on Sunday. Coach Mike Brown had planned on rotating guys at the small forward spot anyway, and since Gee missed a game, it's his turn to start.

Cavs center Tyler Zeller had an appendectomy Friday at the Cleveland Clinic. No timeline has been given for his return.

It has been a tough start to the season for Zeller, who has missed the last week after straining his hip during the team's intrasquad scrimmage. He was diagnosed with acute appendicitis on Friday and operated on immediately.

* Watching Anthony Bennett score from all over the floor during the game’s final 5 ½ minutes demonstrated for the first time why the Cavaliers selected him first overall in June’s draft. Had it been a regular season game, however, he probably never would’ve gotten the chance.

* Bennett made his last six shots, including a pair of 3-pointers and a pair of turnaround fadeaways. He scored inside, he scored outside. He held his ground defensively and drew an offensive foul when Andrew Nicholson couldn’t move him off the block and eventually shoved him with an elbow to the neck – but Bennett ruined it seconds later by snatching the ball out of Nicholson’s hands for a technical.

INDEPENDENCE: Mike Brown hasn't had to rely on a rookie in about seven years. From the sounds of things, he has no interest in starting now.

Brown has been critical of top overall pick Anthony Bennett's play in the preseason opener because of Bennett's air ball on a 3-point attempt, his failure to get back in transition and his failure to box out.

INDEPENDENCE: Kenny Kadji had the better stat line, but that doesn't necessarily mean he has pulled ahead of Henry Sims in competition for the final "big" spot on the roster.

Kadji had 15 points and five rebounds in 12 1/2 minutes Tuesday, while Sims had 4 points and a rebound in 6 1/2 minutes, but Cavs coach Mike Brown turned to Sims first and didn't play Kadji until the second half.

* When Mike Brown was here the first time, his pregame and postgame press conferences were held in the hallway outside the Cavs’ locker room. Now they’re more formal, down the hall inside the Q and on a podium. Brown laughed when a worker clipped the microphone to his sweater vest pregame. “I used to just stand in front of the curtain,” he joked. “That was more my speed.”

* Indeed, plenty has changed around here since the last time Mike Brown coached the Cavaliers. It was a little surreal looking down the bench and seeing Brown on the sidelines and he conceded prior to the game he felt the same way. I get the feeling it won’t take long for him to fall back in his rhythm.

CLEVELAND: Tristan Thompson had 17 points and eight rebounds and Kyrie Irving had 14 points and a renewed commitment to defense to make Mike Brown a 99-87 winner over the Milwaukee Bucks in his return Tuesday to Quicken Loans Arena.

Brown has made improving the defense his mission since taking over in the summer. The results on the first night were encouraging, albeit against a Bucks team expected to struggle. The Cavs held the Bucks to shooting 38 percent and forced 24 turnovers. They created turnovers with their pick-and-roll defense and did a better job of defending the rim (although the Bucks still had a number of open looks). And whenever Brown saw something he didn’t like, he quickly burned through his timeouts.

* Mike Brown will coach a game inside the Q tonight for the first time since the infamous Game 5 meltdown at home against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2010.

* Brown has been inside the Q for other things, but never as an NBA coach during the last three years. The Lakers didn't play here during his first season in Los Angeles because of the lockout, then he was fired last season a month before the Lakers returned here.

INDEPENDENCE: Tyler Zeller's strained left hip is expected to keep him out of Tuesday's preseason opener against the Milwaukee Bucks at Quicken Loans Arena.

Zeller was a limited participant in practice Monday after injuring the hip during the team's Wine & Gold scrimmage on Saturday when he slipped on a slick floor. The injury isn't considered serious and Zeller said on Saturday he didn't expect to miss much time.

BEREA: The Cavaliers canceled their annual Wine & Gold scrimmage with 6:10 left in the third quarter Saturday due to a slick floor. Tyler Zeller strained his left hip when he slipped and fell following a free throw from Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao landed on top of him.

Zeller stayed down momentarily, but eventually limped off holding his left hip. He is listed as day to day, but the injury isn't considered serious and he is hopeful he'll be able to practice on Monday. The Cavs are taking Sunday off. (Video of the pileup can be seen here.)

"Stay healthy, that's it," Brown said. "It's another practice for us and you hope nobody gets hurt. Obviously you want everybody to have a good time. A lot of military families are coming, so you want to show your appreciation for what they do for us on a daily basis. That type of stuff is the norm, but for us, let's get through this healthy and then get something out of it."

Despite flirting with the idea last season, the Cavaliers did not bid on the 2016 All-Star game, which was instead awarded to Toronto this week. The team remains interested in bringing the game back to Cleveland, however, and could eventually submit a proposal for either the 2017 or 2018 game.

Adam Silver, who takes over as NBA commissioner in four months, visited Cleveland in February to explore the feasibility of returning the game here for the first time since 1997. Silver left impressed and encouraged the team to submit a proposal for a future game.